Morning, Sherlock
by writerfan2013
Summary: A morning-after imagining. It happened, but who will recover quickest? My first post! Now updated to start the backstory...now 7 chapters and complete. Can Joan and Sherlock concentrate on solving the case?
1. Chapter 1

The ceiling looked the same as ever. Same dire need of repainting, possibly rebuilding. Grey light poured in through the thin drapes; street noises were faint but clear below. Joan studied the evidence and decided that in all measurable senses, nothing had changed.

This had been predicted. Promised, even. Ha.

It was entirely on his terms. She knew that. He could wake up and announce that the liaison, partnership, cohabitation, was over. His choice of term would establish on what grounds they were separating. She expected he would cite professional reasons, but simultaneously she wanted him to be better than that -better at being a regular human being. It would be a sign of improved socialisation if he were to break it off with her because the sex was not so great.

She shook herself and set better expectations. She had an equal say in what happened and didn't happen. They were not going to break up because they were not an item. There was no implication or expectation of exclusivity. Hell, there was no inkling of repetition.

There was no they, just she and he and a mystery to solve.

Joan ran her hands over her face, sat up, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Time to work. She had had a thought on waking, about the missing autopsy report and needed to follow it up.

Her brain was already racing. Last night, all nights, all past events were behind her and this moment was all consuming: find the killer, find the answer.

She turned back to grab her robe just in time to catch him lying, still and straight, eyes open and staring at her ceiling, looking shell shocked.

Shower time. "Morning, Sherlock."


	2. Chapter 2

Two days earlier.

"Of course, you're not really a woman."

Sherlock was in declamatory mood, sprawled in the tatty armchair with an apple in one hand and the other draped over the side, fingers curled with the easy grace of a ballerina's pose.

He took a bite of the apple and appeared amused by Joan's irritation.

She had been reading a paperback in the equally worn chair opposite. Now she looked across at him, scowling. "I'm not a woman."

"Correct. In this context you are many things, but gender is irrelevant." Another passive aggressive crunch of the apple. A glint in his sharp blue eyes.

She studied him. She knew better than to rise to it, but she couldn't help herself. "Ok, why?"

"Consider the situation, Watson. A man and woman sharing a flat with no familial, fraternal or sexual relationship. It's almost impossible."

"It's a professional arrangement," she reminded him.

"Yes, but this is your evening off." He threw and caught the apple one handed and took another bite. "Yet here you are, spending time in close proximity to a person of the opposite gender, without a flicker of difference to your on-duty demeanour. You have no female friends and no boyfriend or sex buddy."

Joan raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me-?"

"Therefore in this context you are androgynous, removed from the social sphere, to all effects genderless."

"Like you," she pointed out.

"Yes, exactly. Gender based social expectations are limiting and demeaning." He held her gaze and ate the remainder of the apple, core, seeds and all. Then he flung himself back in the seat, his long legs sprawling towards Joan's chair.

"Right. So my lack of gender is a compliment?"

He looked surprised. "Yes, of course."

Unbelievable."Think I'll take my gender freedom somewhere else."

She pursed her lips and held up the book. Sherlock peered at the title as she swept past and up the stairs.

'How to Deal with Difficult People.'


	3. Chapter 3

The case was unpleasant. Two teens found in the boy's car, parked on a scrap of waste ground between building sites. The police reckoned it was a suicide pact, but Sherlock suspected foul play.

"There was nothing illicit in their relationship, Watson."

They were watching the car be towed away from the crime scene. The bodies had been removed to the morgue already -Sherlock had spent time there irritating the pathologist by telling her how to do her job. "Their parents knew and accepted it, the school had no problem with it, even their priest was prepared to turn a blind eye to a little light petting so long as they kept it out of church."

He knelt and plucked at the dusty ground. "They were doing well at school -the boy was on the local swim team, run, by the way, by the priest, and boy and girl were popular. What possible reason could one or either of them have for suicide?"

Joan looked around at the bleak waste ground. Two young people had died here, of carbon monoxide poisoning, in view of the shiny offices of three big corporations. It was the foreign banking quarter, and the neon signs on the tower blocks featured Korean and Chinese characters.

She shivered. How depressing to think of these kids out here while vast sums were being shunted around the globe inside these faceless buildings.

"What's up, Watson - too emotional for you?" Sherlock brushed his hands on his jeans and straightened up. "Come on, let's get to the car impound before their hacks ruin any evidence the killers may have left. I want a closer look at those bodies."

As they walked back to the subway, Watson asked, "Captain Gregson -he's not married, is he?"

"Divorced. Twice. A classic case of allowing one's work life balance to slide. Then the drink, the casual liaisons, the general bad behaviour. It's a wonder he remarried at all. Divorced again of course." Sherlock glanced at Joan.

"He told you all that?"

"I witnessed a lot of it. Why d'you ask?"

Joan shrugged.

Sherlock darted in front of her and walked backwards, ignoring the complaints of the people whose paths he veered into. "You find him appealing, " he stated. "You're considering asking him on, what, a date - to prove to me that my assertion about your not being a woman was incorrect."

He peered into her face and she ducked her head away, frowning. "You fancy him," he accused, halfway between mockery and smugness.

"I'm transparent. Sue me." Joan reached the steps up to Sherlock's home and pushed past him. "Oh, and Sherlock?"

"Mnn-huh?"

"I'll need you to do a drugs test later. I'll be leaving you alone for a while tonight. Now if you'll excuse me. I have a date to arrange and, apparently, a point to prove."

She smiled mirthlessly at him and went inside.

He clattered up the steps after her. "What about the case? We need to go to the precinct!"

"I'll see you there."

Sherlock stepped slowly back to the street, already lost in thought.


	4. Chapter 4

Gregson was in his office when Joan arrived to meet Sherlock later that morning. He nodded at Joan, their eyes connected, and both felt the spark of anticipation.

"Oh please, no need for blushes. Where is he taking you, dinner and a movie?" Sherlock peeled himself off the wall and followed Joan into Gregson's office.

"Not even close. " Gregson slapped the case file onto his desk and gave Sherlock a stern look. "And she's taking me."

Before Sherlock could articulate the Oooh, on his lips, Gregson cut in. "The lab confirms CO2 poisoning."

"The means of murder is not in doubt," said Sherlock."Only the motive, and the identity of the killers."

Gregson sighed. "Ok, what are you thinking?"

Sherlock paced the room, turning with a flourish as he reached each wall. "Two things. First, no note, none of the usual teenage histrionics accompanying a suicide pact. I spoke to their parents. These children were planning their wedding, not a date with their maker. Second, this."

He stopped at Gregson's desk and placed something on it. Joan and Gregson leaned in to peer at it.

"A piece of duct tape. A snippet, fresh, dropped carelessly on the ground beside the car where these young people died."

Sherlock began pacing again. "I visited the car impound and found traces of the same tape around the exhaust pipe and, crucially, the door frames. The outside of the door frames."

"Someone sealed them in, " said Gregson. Joan shivered.

"And then that someone or someones came back and attempted to remove all evidence from the car which now contained two dead teenagers. Yes."

"No witnesses, "mused Gregson. "No cameras covering that spot, nothing."

"Why would anyone want them dead?" said Joan. "Two kids, what could they have done to attract that kind of attention?"

Sherlock hopped onto the desk and sat swinging his legs. "I believe that the planning application for that piece of waste ground may cast some light on it."

"If there is one," said Gregson.

"This is New York, of course there is one. Or, if I'm right, several, in conflict with each other, providing a motive for one party to try to poison the scene for another, halting the planning process." Sherlock jumped down. "Come on Watson, let's spend some quality time with the planning department of this fine city."

"See you later, " said Joan to Gregson. He nodded and waved them out.

xxx

Sherlock was frowning at the planning applications. Joan was flipping through pictures of the crime scene and pathologist's report. They were back at Sherlock's, both ignoring the clock ticking down the hours to Joan's date.

"A row of shops and a launderette," said Sherlock. He grimaced. "I was expecting something a little more high powered." He hunched over the stack of papers, knitting his slender fingers together.

Joan passed him one of the pictures. "Look at this, the alignment of the entrance to the Korean bank and the street. It's off. That's unlucky." Sherlock blinked at her. "You know, bad feng shui. Even banks hire specialists to make sure their feng shui is correct, you know."

They bent over the photo together. "You're right," said Sherlock. "Feng shui principles require the entrance not to have a prospect which encourages so called negative energy to flow in. But the bank's entrance faces the bin store of the diner opposite. But if it could be moved just a few metres to the left..."

"It would face the diner's main frontage, far more auspicious." Joan smiled at him. "Worth a look?"

"Maybe." Sherlock drummed his fingers and shuffled paper. "I would make two points though. One, there is no application for an extension from the bank, putting them in competition with the other requests to build, and two, Korean corporations do not, as a rule, go in for feng shui of the same flavour as, say, Chinese. Nothing suggests that this alignment would be inauspicious for them."

Joan sighed. "Then what?"

"Let's visit the other applicants. Maybe one of them will turn out to have a very strong motive for instigating a police investigation which would delay the planning process."

"They were so young, " said Joan. "Hardly old enough to be considering college, let alone marriage."

Sherlock sniffed. "Marriage. An outdated institution devised to encourage social stability, keeping all parties in their supposedly divinely ordained places. Maybe they're better off without it."

"Sherlock!"

He had the grace to look abashed. "Sorry. Look, you talk to the strip mall developer and I'll tackle the would be launderette. See if we can figure out who would want to throw a giant, murder-shaped spanner into the works."

He trickled off, humming Saint-Saen's Danse Macabre, and Joan shook her head.

People just appeared as collections of features to him, not beings with feelings, ideas, passions. How had he ever been in love? His passion was purely for the intellectual.

She couldn't imagine him enraptured with anything so messy, complicated and demanding as a person.

So why was she trying?

"Stop it, " she said out loud, and Sherlock made her jump by sticking his head back round the door.

"What?"

"Nothing." Some hidden part of herself prompted her to add bitchily, "You couldn't understand. It's a woman thing."

He gave her a suspicious glance then disappeared again.

Planning applications. Think planning applications.

xxx

"You look..."

Joan stood at the foot of the stairs putting on her coat and hat. "Nice?" she suggested.

"Different," said Sherlock. He cocked his head on one side. "Red lace. Very suggestive. And impractical shoes, too. You really do aim to make an impression."

Joan did not reply. She had picked the dress, a fairly modest red silk shift with an overlay of lace, because it said Date and not Work. The brown patent heels contrasted nicely with it. That was all and she was not entering into a Sherlock dissection of her outfit.

"Careful, Watson," Sherlock said as Joan wound her scarf around her neck. "Gregson's no spring chicken. You wouldn't want to give him a heart attack."

"Thanks for your concern. I'll be back in two hours to test you."

She click clacked to the door.

"Effective," commented Sherlock to her retreating back. She turned, still at the top step, and raised her eyebrows at him. "The whole..." He waved a hand at her. "Ensemble. It's very effective."

Joan blinked at him. He was gazing at her intently as if examining her face for clues. She opened her mouth to say Thanks in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice, but under his gaze, no words came out.

Sherlock had been holding the door open as she stood on the top step. Joan turned and walked steadily away.

Sherlock lifted his hand and the door slammed shut.

xxxx

The waitress piled the last dim sum dish under her chin and hustled away. Gregson shifted in his seat, leaning back in the booth with a satisfied sigh. "That was something. This place is the best."

"I live on take out at Sherlock's, " Joan told him, similarly leaning back in her seat opposite him. "I was starting to forget what fresh food tasted like. I guessed you might feel the same."

Gregson laughed. They clinked glasses together and drank, but she held her hand over her glass when he offered the bottle for a top up.

"This is nice," Gregson said. There was a pause. "I'm not kidding myself," Gregson said into it.

Joan looked up.

"You're a beautiful young woman and I'm a tired old guy with a waist I ought to be ashamed of. I'm not flattering myself that there's going to be a second date. But I was glad to be asked."

"Toby!" Joan placed her hand over his. "You're a great cop at the top of your career. You're distinguished, not old."

Gregson chuckled and ran his hand through his silvered hair. "The mirror says I'm getting more distinguished every day."

"This has been fun," Joan insisted.

"Yeah, it has. But I'm not kidding myself that this is about me. This is, ok, I don't know what it is, but it's about Sherlock."

Joan was still. "Why," she said quietly.

Gregson shrugged. "Because he's a hot young stud? I don't know! But whatever it is with you and him, he's right in the middle of it too. He was always pretty crazy when I knew him before. No limits, you know what I mean? But since you moved in, he's..." He groped for the word.

"Settled down?" suggested Joan archly.

Gregson pushed away the last of the wine and gestured for a beer. "He's reined it in a little. He tries to act a little more like a regular person. And you know, even though he used to be wild with the ladies... he's an ok guy -kind of a nerd- but you get the feeling that for the right woman he wouldn't have a problem keeping it in his pants."

"The penis," Joan exclaimed.

Gregson choked on his beer. "Excuse me?"

She blushed. "I'm sorry. This case, the supposed suicide. Sherlock said there was no opposition to the relationship. But at the morgue... I noticed that the boy was circumcised."

Gregson took a deep breath. "This would be another reason you get on so well with Sherlock. The relentless focus on an unsolved mystery until you figure it out. But he doesn't even apologise."

Joan was reaching for her phone.

Gregson took a breath, let it slowly out. "Time to go?"

"I'm sorry."

"I'll see you home."

xxxx

"A tender doorstep scene," commented Sherlock from the sofa without looking up. "A chaste kiss on the cheek, a squeeze of the hand, but no invitation inside for coffee?" He flicked through channels on the bank of TVs with a languid wrist.

Joan threw her scarf on a chair. "Circumcision!"

Sherlock froze. Then he sprang up, snatched up the case photos. "They had a priest, not a rabbi. They were Roman Catholics. Why would the boy be circumcised, unless..."

He found the one he wanted and shook it triumphantly. "...He had converted from another faith such as Judaism where it is a common practice!"

"There could be other reasons of course. Medical issues, for example." Joan straddled a chair to watch Sherlock think.

"Or we could be looking at a religiously motivated killing." Sherlock looked grim. "It seems that the community was not quite as supportive of this love match as we thought."


	5. Chapter 5

Joan woke late next morning and sat up with a jolt. She grabbed her phone and saw that it was past nine. There was a series of messages, all from Sherlock.

-(5:45 AM) Found evidence of gang connection to launderette applicant. Visiting now. When are you getting up?

-(6:22 AM) Laundry owner very grumpy and speaks only Korean. Mine too rusty, need translator. Where are you?

-(7.03 AM) Kingston in London has largest South Korean diaspora in Europe. Ringing old flatmate there to find decent translator. Why is nobody here out of bed yet?

-(7.57 AM) Strip mall developer's office unhelpful. Nonsense about being closed for personal reasons. Watson, the day is wasting away.

-(8.35AM) Korean translation suggests laundromat owner keen to shake off old gang connections and forge new life in landof the free. Are you up yet?

-(8.48 AM) Priest aware of victim's change of faith - saw him in showers after swimming. Keeping priest on back burner purely for excessively creepy behaviour. Text me when awake.

-(8.53 AM) On way back. Hope you are up. Bringing croissants.

Joan chuckled.

xxxx

She wandered downstairs, fresh and warm from a shower, and put coffee on. The green juice could wait. Had two glasses of wine with Toby last night really wiped her out? It seemed so. The companion business did not make for high alcohol tolerance.

She padded into the front room, cradling her mug of coffee, and found Sherlock crouched at the computer, snarling. He waved a hand at a crumpled paper bag on the desk beside him. "I saved you one."

"If the launderette owner speaks only Korean, how did he file a planning application in English?" Joan asked, settling cross-legged on the other desk chair. She bit into the croissant and it flaked everywhere.

"Exactly! Watson, you're learning." Sherlock turned to grin at her, excitement in his eyes. "He was lying. He was so keen to tell me how much he loved his new country, he didn't notice me pocketing his cup."

He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a tiny white tea cup in a plastic bag. "In case we should need a DNA sample," Sherlock said. "I'll drop it to the lab on our way."

"Where are we going?"

Sherlock glanced at her and frowned, then reached in to flick crumbs from her top. Joan batted him away and brushed herself off. "The strip mall developer's office. Let's see if they've deigned to open for business yet. There's a connection between these applicants and the killings, I'm sure of it. We're going to find it."


	6. Chapter 6

They were in a cab travelling back to the developer's office. City rain dribbled down the windows. Joan and Sherlock's bulky coats meant they were bunched up closely on the back seat. To an onlooker it would have seemed cosy, but the pair constantly fidgeted, trying to find space.

Joan's phone buzzed. She looked at it. Gregson.

-Thanks for last night, if you wanna share more fresh food some time just say the word. T.

She smiled.

Sherlock peered at the message. Joan waited for him to make a scathing remark, but after a moment he just snorted and sat back in his seat. A text came into his own phone, and he snatched it with, what -relief? She could not be sure.

"It's Gregson," Sherlock said. "He wants to talk to me about the Korean laundrette owner. Wants to know what I spoke to him about."

Joan called forward to ask the driver to change route and head to the precinct, but Sherlock stopped her and gave the address of the Korean. "We're going back to talk to him again?" Joan asked.

"Not really," said Sherlock. "He's dead."

xxxx

Gregson was unimpressed with Sherlock's description of his interview with the Korean. "All I see is, you quiz this guy about a suicide of two kids, then an hour later he shows up dead."

"I need to see the body," said Sherlock.

"No way," said Gregson. "You're a witness."

He glared at Sherlock, and Sherlock stared back.

Bell interrupted the standoff. "He left a note."

They all examined the note in its plastic bag. "It's in Korean," said Gregson.

Sherlock raised one eyebrow rather smugly. "Would you like me to call my translator?"

As they waited for Sherlock's scan of the note to be translated by his London friend, Joan tried to call the strip mall developer. "No luck," she said. "Why did you say they were shut?"

Sherlock was paging through the dead man's financial statements. "He was up to his eyes in debt," he said. "And does the name of this creditor look rather familiar to you?"

Joan peered at his phone's screen, her head close to his. "The bank! The bank next to the murder scene."

"Coincidence? I doubt it very much. No, the would be launderette manager and the bank are definitely linked - he was horribly in hock to them. Now he's dead."

"You think the bank had him killed because he couldn't pay?"

Sherlock shook his he'd. "If he's dead, he definitely wouldn't be able to pay them what he owed. No...he needed his new business to be a success. But his application was being blocked by the mysteriously unavailable strip mall developer."

His phone buzzed. "Ah, the translation." He frowned at it.

Joan read: "I'm sorry. It was the right car."

They looked at each other, Sherlock's eyes lingering on her face a little longer than she found comfortable. He was always so intense. "The right car,"she began.

"But the wrong people!" Sherlock clicked his fingers. "The car, the very thing I started with. Who is it registered to?"

Gregson came over. "I got the details here."

"Ha! The strip mall developer. The murder was meant for him."

"So," said Joan, "the Korean looked for his rival's car visiting the proposed site at the waste ground one evening, and sealed him inside, fed a tube back into the car from the exhaust-"

"Giving him carbon monoxide poisoning." Sherlock began pacing. "No sign of a struggle...the occupants must gave been asleep...or engrossed in their displays of affection."

He rubbed his hand over his chin. "But when the Korean came back in the early morning to remove the tape and tube, he looked into the car and saw two kids, not the guy he meant to kill." He nodded. "That explains the signals I picked up indicating that he was lying to me. I thought it was about his former gang life..."

"But what were they doing in the strip mall developer's car?" said Joan.

"Joy riding?" suggested Gregson.

"No...I examined that car and there was no indication that it had been stolen. They had the keys."

He swung round to Joan. "It's time to pay one more visit to the strip mall developer. I think I can help them out with something."

"They're shut," said Joan. "There's no point going all the way over there."

"We're not going there." Sherlock was dialling a number. "We are going to the church of our swim coach and voyeuristic friend, the priest."


	7. Chapter 7

Gregson gave them a ride in a cop car. He led a small convoy to the city church not far from where the car holding the teenage lovers had been found.

"No need for flashing blues," observed Sherlock. "The deed is done and our killer is both remorseful and dead."

He turned up his collar. The grey sky had turned cold.

Black cars hudddled in the small parking lot to the side of the church. There was a smell of snow in the air.

Joan lifted off her scarf and laid it round Sherlock's neck.

He accepted it with a nod and offered her his arm. Followed by Gregson and Bell, they entered the narrow stone church.

It was packed, and sounds of sobbing came from all sides. At

the front, smothered in flowers, were two light oak coffins.

Joan swallowed, realising whose funeral this was. All around, bereft relatives, team mates and school friends wept and comforted each other.

At the front stood the priest, pale and distraught, reading a passage in a quiet but steady tone.

Sherlock and Joan slid into a pew at the back. "Look at the second row," he whispered, close to her ear. He gestured at the left side of the church, in line with the smaller coffin with its pink and apricot bouquets.

"That's not her parents," Joan said. "They're in the frontrow."

"No. See the balding man who can't stop weeping? That's the girl's uncle, who generously loaned her his car for a date: the property developer. That murder was meant for him."

They watched him. His shoulders shook, and people around him gave hugs and pats as the service continued.

"This is awful," said Joan.

"I think I'll allow Gregson the unhappy task of explaining the reasons for the deaths of these unfortunate children. He has more...humanity about him in these situations." Sherlock glanced at her questioningly. "More of a regular guy all round, I'm sure you'll concur."

"Yeah..." Joan dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. "Sherlock - I don't want to be here."

He looked fully at her, saw tears in her eyes, nodded. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, they rose, and hurried from the church.

xxxx

In the cab home, Joan wiped her eyes with a tissue and tried to regain her dignity. "They should have been getting married," she said. "It's so sad." She wiped her cheeks again. "I'm sorry."

Sherlock patted her hand, then held and squeezed it.

The cab travelled. They looked out of the front, past the myriad stickers on the glass between them and the cabbie.

Outside, sleet pelted the streets.

"I was wrong," Sherlock said. He twisted round and gripped both Joan's hands. She stared at him. "You most definitely are a woman, and a woman whose mind, body, whose whole person I find incredibly appealing. I was wrong when I spoke before and I'm sorry."

He let go of her and dropped back in his seat.

Joan sat bolt upright. "That's it?" she exclaimed. "You insult my very existence, say you're sorry and that is just it?"

Sherlock turned back to her with a dangerous spark in his eyes. "No," he said slowly, "that is not it." Before she could speak he leaned in and kissed her.

The cabbie glanced in his mirror as they entwined in the back seat. He rolled his eyes. Why did couples find cabs so irresistible?

xxxx

Back at the brownstone, the door slammed and Joan and Sherlock were in out of the cold. His arms were still firmly around her and her hands held the bare nape of his neck.

He broke for a moment to speak.

"Is this going to be one of those things where we both stagger backwards under the weight of our passion, until I collapse neatly on top of you in the sink?"

"Oh God." Joan pushed him away. "No. No! This is such a bad idea."

"Yes, isn't it, let's stop."

Sherlock kissed her again, but delicately, and she shivered. "Thought not," he murmured.

Joan tilted back her head and spoke to the ceiling as

Sherlock covered her throat with kisses. "Oh, this is bad."

"On the contrary Joan, it is very, very good."

Joan poured green juice into a tall glass and went into the front room. The notes from that old case were in here somewhere and she wanted to take another look at the autopsy record. Her surgeon's mind had kicked into life these last few weeks, as if the years of knowledge were raring to be let off the leash she'd kept them on.

Sherlock knew a great many things, but he couldn't match her on that.

Sherlock...

She smiled, then composed herself. There was work ahead - real work, at last.

Sherlock sauntered in, rubbing a towel over damp hair. "What case file is that?"

"The swimming pool fire."

"Ah yes - a dozen victims, twice as many suspects, nothing was ever proved."

"I just wanted a closer look at the medical history of the third victim."

Sherlock flung the towel at a chair. "I need coffee. -The third victim?"

"Yes. -I put coffee on already."

"Right."

He turned towards the kitchen, then spun back on tiptoes, took one stride towards her, and kissed the top of her head. Then he was gone.

Joan glanced after him, hid a smile, and turned back to the case.

The End


End file.
